Expanded for the occasion of ZZ Top’s 50th anniversary, Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead throws wide Gibbons’ garage and studio doors for an exclusive look at his exquisite collection of cars and guitars. Love cars, guitars, and ZZ Top? This visually stunning tour through this Grade-A Texas gearhead's weird, wild life, vintage and way-out custom guitars, and influential hot rods and custom cars is mandatory education. From the near-mythical ’59 Les Paul sunburst known as “Pearly Gates” and the “Furry One” of MTV renown to cars like the Eliminator, CadZZilla, and Kopperhed, they’re all here—more than 60 guitars and 15 astounding vehicles, all expounded upon by BFG himself and shown in commissioned color and artistic black-and-white photography. Cars and guitars that have made their way to light since the book's first publication in 2005 are included: Cars: Mexican Blackbird 1958 Thunderbird Quintana ’50 Ford Custom El Camino Grocery-Getter custom Whiskey Runner '34 Ford Coupe ’51 Willys Wagon Guitars: Party Peelers John Bolin Customs Neiman Marcus BFG SG Nacho Telecaster John Bolin "Think Buck" T-style Mexican Blackbird solidbody Mojo Maker Tone Bender Zemaitis custom Marconi Lab Guitar 1929 Dixie Ukelele 1939 Rickenbacker Frying Pan …and more! While BFG’s cars ’n’ guitars are the stuff of legend, no less intriguing are the tales behind his incredible music career. From teenage Houston garage rocker to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the whole story is between these covers, told in the Good Reverend Willie G’s own words and illustrated with photos and memorabilia from his personal archive. As with many rockers, Billy F Gibbons' jones for hot rods and customs is the stuff of legend. But beyond this bona fide bluesman's mastery of the six-string and unrepentant love for internal combustion is a noted collector whose own designs have manifested themselves in hundreds of mind-bending cars and guitars. This is the definitive and official record of that genius.

These are the guitars so famous that their names are often household words: B. B. King's Lucille, Eric Clapton's Blackie, Stevie Ray Vaughan's First Wife, Billy F Gibbons' Pearly Gates, Neil Young's Old Black, and many more. Here's the first-ever illustrated history of the actual guitars of the stars that made the music. Other best-selling guitar histories look at the rank-and-file models, but this book is unique in profiling the actual "star guitars"--the million-dollar babies, such as the 1968 Stratocaster that Jimi Hendrix burned at Woodstock, which sold at Sotheby's auction house in 1993 for $1,300,000. Amateurs buy guitars to emulate the stars--Clapton's Strat, Slash's Les Paul--and this book explains the stars' modifications, thus showing how others can recreate those famous tones.

Revised and expanded, with a new afterword by the author, this is the definitive biography of Duane Allman, one of the most revered guitarists of his generation. Skydog reveals the complete story of the legendary guitarist: his childhood and musical awakening; his struggling first bands; his hard-won mastery of the slide guitar; his emergence as a successful session musician; his creation of the Allman Brothers Band; his tragic death at age 24; and his thriving musical legacy.

ZZ Top behind the scenes--from blues to boogie to beards. Here is the hairy, hilarious story of one of America's most outrageous bands. Written by a former roadie, Sharp Dressed Men chronicles their whole rocky, ribald road to success. Two 8-page photo inserts.

Memphis gave birth to music that changed the world — Memphis Mayhem is a fascinating history of how music and culture collided to change the state of music forever “David Less has captured the essence of the Memphis music experience on these pages in no uncertain terms. There's truly no place like Memphis and this is the story of why that is. HAVE MERCY!” — Billy F Gibbons, ZZ Top Memphis Mayhem weaves the tale of the racial collision that led to a cultural, sociological, and musical revolution. David Less constructs a fascinating narrative of the city that has produced a startling array of talent, including Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Al Green, Otis Redding, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Justin Timberlake, and so many more. Beginning with the 1870s yellow fever epidemics that created racial imbalance as wealthy whites fled the city, David Less moves from W.C. Handy’s codification of blues in 1909 to the mid-century advent of interracial musical acts like Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the birth of punk, and finally to the growth of a music tourism industry. Memphis Mayhem explores the city’s entire musical ecosystem, which includes studios, high school band instructors, clubs, record companies, family bands, pressing plants, instrument factories, and retail record outlets. Lively and comprehensive, this is a provocative story of finding common ground through music and creating a sound that would change the world.

There was time - not long ago - when cars were much more than transportation. Part function, part fashion, part id, cars were the largest thing you could wear. Every American teenager dreamed of having their own car because it promised joy, freedom and self-expression. During this era, Bob Larivee was the undisputed ringmaster of the greatest show on Earth - the indoor hot rod and custom car show. Driven by pure enthusiasm, and possessing a natural gift of knowing what would draw people, Larivee built an empire that showcased style, color, chrome, horsepower, pop culture and fantasy. His Promotions, Inc. (PI) produced events for decades that helped define American car passion while fueling the dreams of millions around the world. Hot Rod Dreams - Car Shows and Culture celebrates the people and stories of this not-so-long-ago - and still evolving - world. From the earliest days of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth through the golden era of car-crazy TV, Hot Rod Dreams celebrates what it was really like to buy an "Outlaw", employ Playboy Playmates, and make sure Dale Earnhardt got home in time for dinner - while also exploring how popular culture inspires our concepts of personal identity.

Clues to undiscovered species have been left by missionaries and pastors throughout the world, and explorer Bill Gibbons is hot on their trail. He continues to travel to remote parts of the world investigating cryptozoological mysteries still remaining in God's creation.

The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend “No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.”—President Barack Obama “He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced.”—Eric Clapton Riley “Blues Boy” King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister’s guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)—in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago’s Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King’s inner circle—family, band members, retainers, managers, and more—and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby “Blue” Bland simply called “the man.”

With more highly skilled luthiers at work than ever before, ours is a golden age of the electric guitar. Presenting superbly crafted electric guitars as fine art, this beautifully photographed book gives 125 master luthiers from 15 countries the spotlight--artisans who have custom-built instruments for the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Steve Miller, George Benson, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. From the invention of the electric guitar in the 1930s to its development in the 1960s to present-day innovations, Electrified is a lovingly detailed look at these beautifully produced instruments . . . and the talented people who make them.

Explorer, cryptozoologist, and creationist Bill Gibbons has traveled to remote corners of the world in search of strange and unknown creatures. But Bill's heart is in Africa, where monstrous dinosaur-like creatures are still rumored to inhabit the vast swamps of the Congo Basin. In Mokele-Mbembe: Mystery Beast of the Congo Basin, Gibbons provides a fascinating insight into several expeditions that have ventured forth in search of suspected living dinosaurs, include several of his own. Here you will read about many amazing eyewitness testimonies and surprise encounters with these remarkable creatures. This book will take you on a journey into a true "lost world" of pygmy tribes, dense unforgiving jungles, hidden unexplored lakes, and rivers that run for hundreds of miles into a land that time has literally forgotten. No armchair explorer, Gibbons also details several other incredible creatures that by all accounts should have been extinct eons ago, yet are still encountered today by astonished eyewitnesses in the 21st century. Join Bill as he continues on his tireless quest in search of an animal that could well be the most important scientific discovery of this century!